If School's In, Will The Kids Be?

August 21, 2007|By Shawn Day, sday@dailypress.com | 247-4816

WILLIAMSBURG — With two weeks left until the official start of the school year, officials in Williamsburg-James City County Public Schools are trying to figure out where -- and when -- they will educate students in the district's new alternative school.

Five students are scheduled to enroll this fall in the Academy for Life and Learning, a less-expensive offshoot of the now-defunct Center for Educational Opportunities.

The academy, to be staffed mainly by volunteers and part-time teachers, is intended for expelled or long-term suspended students.

It will operate on a $476,239 annual budget, about a third of the Center for Educational Opportunities' budget.

However, the building that housed the former program on the grounds of Eastern State Hospital has been condemned.

District officials have not yet established classrooms or set a date to start classes in the new academy.

Anthony Mungin, the recently hired leader of the academy, said Monday that local churchgoers and College of William and Mary students have volunteered to serve as mentors and help teach academy students "life skills."

He also said he has hired seven part-time teachers, most of them from Newport News Public Schools, where he previously worked.

Mungin said he plans to hire one more part-time math teacher and a security officer.

District officials plan to establish the academy on the grounds of Eastern State Hospital, but they said they were awaiting final paperwork before setting up portable classrooms, or trailers.

Site preparation work is expected to take 30 days once the paperwork is finalized, Mungin said.

That could mean mid- to late-September -- or later -- before the academy is fully functional.

Meanwhile, the use of homebound instructors -- who will teach students at a location other than the classroom -- is being considered as a way of bridging the gap between the start of the school year and the opening of the academy's facilities, said Stephen Chantry, the district's director of student services.

Mungin said he will hold an orientation for academy staff members on Sept. 4, the first day of school for the rest of the district's schools, except for Matoaka Elementary, which is still under construction.

Matoaka Elementary Principal Andy Jacobs said his school remains on pace to open on Sept. 18.

During the gap between Sept. 4 and the school's opening on Sept. 18, some 40 to 50 Matoaka students likely will attend a day-care program at the Williamsburg Indoor Sports Complex, Jacobs said.

The cost to parents to enroll a Matoaka student in the sports complex's day-care program is $85 per week for full-time, and $50 per week for part-time students, according to WISC employee Robin Penfold.

Jacobs said the students likely will be divided into groups, such as kindergartners through second-graders in one group and third- through fifth-graders in another group, for activities and academic instruction. *